Vid warnings: not as easy as it sounds

[arduinna]

I didn't actually intend to make a follow-up post; I didn't think one would be necessary. But I think it is. I mention several people by name in this, because I can't see any other way to have a conversation about concrete things. I hope no one takes this personally; my intent is to look at a trend that caught me very much by surprise, and that I don't think anyone else has noticed, and that I think has real bearing on the current conversation.

So, after making my last post, I started catching up on other posts a little, and came across laurashapiro's announcement that she's going to be warning for common PTSD triggers and common triggers for migraine or epilepsy. She included a list of the vids she's showing at Vividcon this year in various shows, with warnings attached, so people can be prepared when they see them.

I generally skip warnings, because I don't want to know what's in vids before I see them. But I spent hours yesterday watching vids specifically with that trigger list in mind, and when I came across Laura's post I wanted to see if it matched my general experience with those vid discs.

It didn't, at all, and in fact was so different I sat there blinking, because her warnings also didn't match my memory of her vids. So I re-watched them.

I think she got these warnings very wrong in the context of the current discussion. In fact, I'm honestly boggled at how how much my interpretation differed from Laura's. So I went looking to see if it was just her I disagreed wtih.

It's not. My take is different in the vast majority of the cases I found.

Laura linked me to the list of vidder-provided warning posts being gathered by were_duck, so I went through every vid I could. Everyone on this list says they're using that same list of PTSD and physical triggers to provide their warnings.

I'm only going over individual vidders' warnings; I can't speak to how accurate the VJs who are providing warnings for their entire shows are. Also, I'm only including vids I could find online (one of the vidders on were_duck's list had no listed vids online that I could find, so that person isn't included here).


avendya chose to put in a specific warning:

Show: Nearly New
Title: Blood Makes Noise
Warning: violence -- there is a short clip of a young woman being choked by an older man. The source is Merlin (2008), and there is no outside source used.

If she had just left it at "explicit violence", she would have been fine. But she specifically says here that there is only one instance of violence in this vid, and I counted at least seven other scenes that contained explicit violence.



chagrined has one vid going to VVC, and went with this:

Specific trigger and content details:
Show: Sexuality vidshow
Vid: Tarantulove
Fandom: Secretary
Trigger Warnings (taken from this list): Dubious consent

I think that's okay? There's an additional spoiler-protected content note that explains some context that covers a scene in the vid I think could potentially cause a problem for someone coming at it from a trigger place, but I assume people with triggers read all the description they can get, so that's covered.



china_shop went with these:

VIDSHOW: Newbies Rock
VID TITLE: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat
FANDOM: White Collar
WARNINGS: Guns fired toward camera (including muzzle flash, but not sound).

Guns are only fired at one point, but are aimed with intent at several other points. There's also someone having their arms being jerked behind them, and being put into handcuffs. I don't know if any of that would fall under a violence/assault trigger, but it seems like it could, to me. My personal opinion is that "explicit violence" would be a better warning on this vid than singling out one instance and ignoring other borderline instances.


VIDSHOW: Newbies Rock
VID TITLE: Southside
FANDOM: Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls In Love
WARNINGS: None.

Agreed; I didn't see anything in this one.



damned_colonial went with this:

Show: Nearly New
Vid: There Still Remains the Cocaine Bottle
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Warnings: None

I would have warned this as: Audio change, bright flashing, quick microcuts, explicit violence.



laurashapiro went with these:

VIDSHOW: Race and Representation in Vidding
VID TITLE: Sawatte Kawatte (Touch! Change!)
FANDOM: Heroes
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.

I would add: Audio change, bright flashes, explicit violence.


VIDSHOW: Sexuality
VID TITLE: Hurricane
FANDOM: Farscape, Battlestar Galactica
WARNINGS: Child abuse (non-sexual), briefly depicted

I would add: Bright flashes, explicit violence, sexual violence.


VIDSHOW: We're Here, We're Queer
VID TITLE: Queen Bitch
FANDOM: Hedwig and the Angry Inch
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.


I would add: Audio change, strobing lights, bright flashes, explicit violence.



mresundance went with these:

VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Almost Cut My Hair
FANDOM: Chaplin (1993 film)
WARNINGS: No warnings apply.

I would add: Strobing lights, bright flashing


VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Runs in the Family
FANDOM: True Blood
WARNINGS: Extreme sexuality, violence and gore. Use of movement and quick editing could be triggery for migraines and epilepsy.

That seems pretty comprehensive.



such_heights went with these:

Butterflies and Hurricanes
fandom: Torchwood
vidshow: Identity
notes: no warnings

I would add: Audio change, explicit violence, bright flashing (I might warn for strobing lights as well, but that's pretty borderline)

Of Monsters and Heroes and Men
fandom: Gladiator
vidshow: Nearly New
notes: character death

I would add: Explicit violence

Many Hands
fandom: multi
vidshow: Sexuality
notes: no warnings

There are a couple of borderline things that I might warn for just in case, but okay.



thuviaptarth went with these

VIDSHOW: Identity
VID TITLE: Names
FANDOM: The Vampire Diaries
NOTES: None of these warnings apply.

Seems okay.

VIDSHOW: Nearly New
VID TITLE: Etheric Messages
FANDOM: Fringe
NOTES: Contains brief and inexplicit images of nonconsensual medical experimentation and a car crash, as well as (nonviolent) nonconsensual experimentation on children. A man getting shot. Some gruesome imagery. I would rate the level of violence/grue at PG or PG-13 if I had to use US movie ratings. Possible concerns for photosensitivity: Flickering lights (think of slow strobing like a police car's flasher rather than quick strobing like a disco ball), a flash of lightning, and a brief section of quick high contrast cuts of about 3-6 frames each.

Seems comprehensive.



I truly believe that every one of these vidders meant sincerely to offer helpful warnings to people with PTSD and physical triggers, but IMO, in many cases they failed. And this was a situation where they were under no deadline pressure; no submission-form panic; no frustration from having just exported their vid for the sixth time and the audio still isn't working, goddammit. They had time, and space to think, and wrote these warnings in an environment where the idea of warnings on vids was a primary discussion topic.

The warnings that came out of that environment should have been as close to perfect as it's possible to get, and instead, the majority were misleading at best. They inadvertently set their viewers up to be more vulnerable, not less.

And this is part of the reason why I think a blanket "we don't provide warnings" statement for the entire con is so valuable. Every vid is a risk, even vids whose creators think are perfectly safe.

Well over 200 vids air at the convention; last year, more than 100 vids premiered at the con, as totally unknown quantities.

It's obviously very difficult for even the most diligently pro-warnings vidders to accurately label their vids with trigger warnings. People who think this is a simple, one-minute task are demonstrably wrong.

For my part, I don't want warnings on vids; vidding has traditionally been a no-warnings zone, and Vividcon in particular has always been a place where everyone has been explicitly informed that they may see vids that disturb or distress them. It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

I think a big part of the current problem is that people expect Vividcon to be all things to all people, which no con or community could possibly be.


Maybe what's needed really is a second convention, run by people whose focus is on warnings-based risk-aversion, or at least risk-alleviation, to cater to a crowd that's uncomfortable in the Vividcon environment, with a specific infrastructure in place to help cope with the difficulty of accurately warning for triggers appropriately. I think there's enough passion and dedication being shown to make that possible; maybe some of those passionate folks could be the beginnings of a concom, working in concert to create the sort of con environment they envision, and from the look of the response the idea is getting, this would be a hugely popular con.

That would be fantastic, if you ask me - more vid cons, aimed at different vid audiences! \o/ Vividcon for fans who don't want warnings; the other con for fans who do. Any vidder submitting to either con would know what was expected, and could choose to submit to the con that best suited them (or to both, if they were fine with both methods of distribution).


(edited to cut for length, with apologies!) (eta2: to fix the cut to where it was actually supposed to be *facepalm*

Comments

[damned_colonial]

Thanks for doing this -- I was actually just revisiting my post as you posted, to clarify the specific things I was(n't) warning for. You are right, there are bright flashes in mine that I hadn't caught -- this is the first time I've had to think about that, and was thinking more in terms of added effects than wrt source material, and since I knew I hadn't added any as effects I didn't think of the ones in the canon.

Perhaps someone with experience wrt migraine/seizure triggers can clarify whether things like explosions or muzzle flash from gunfire counts as "bright flashing" for those purposes, since that's a common potential source?

I'm not sure I agree with you on the other points, but will consider them.

[kass]

More vid cons would indeed be awesome. :-)

Increasingly, as I read what I can of these discussions, I feel like I'm seeing a clash of vidding cultures, or fannish cultures, or maybe both. And I agree that VVC can't be all things to all people; no con can.

[wickedwords]

I'm coming away from this whole thing wondering if there is anything I can watch. You guys have been taking care of me for years, warning me about the bright white flashes that can give me migraines, and I don't trust other people to be able to see their own vids.

[avendya]

If she had just left it at "explicit violence", she would have been fine. But she specifically says here that there is only one instance of violence in this vid, and I counted at least seven other scenes that contained explicit violence.

Fair point. I meant - and failed to convey - that there was one scene I would consider triggery, and there was also other violence. I've rewritten my post to clarify. My email to the concom to add a warning says "contains violence, particularly against women", which I believe does cover the vid reasonably. That's also why I specified the source, and that no outside source has been used, so vid watchers who knew the fandom would have an idea how much, and graphic, the violence in the vid is likely to be, based on other Merlin vids and/or the source.

[laurashapiro]

Thanks. Since I posted, I've been thinking I need to revisit my vids and warnings. It's clear to me now that I do.

[emyrys]

I think a big part of the current problem is that people expect Vividcon to be all things to all people, which no con or community could possibly be.

Yes, this. exactly.

Vividcon in particular has always been a place where everyone has been explicitly informed that they may see vids that disturb or distress them. It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

Also, I agree with this.

I've been to VVC 3 times, and loved each time. I learned quickly to recognize vids from shows I wanted to avoid either because of personal preferences or due to emotional/physical triggers (I am really starting to hate that word)) and to just look down whenever they came on. Some years, I saw most all the vids, and one year I only peaked at several of the vids.

I knew exactly what risks I was taking, and enjoyed the vid shows i attended regardless.

[the_shoshanna]

This is fascinating, and IMO critically important data. Thank you for these posts.

[impertinence]

I'm not sure I agree with the logical progression you're presenting here. It's true that sometimes people are mistaken regarding warnings, but I don't think the possibility that warnings could be wrong/insufficient is enough to preclude having them at all. Particularly since it hasn't yet been tried. If people went to VVC expecting warnings and came back saying that actually, not a single warning had helped - then I think it might be time to reevaluate whether or not warnings could be useful. But to be blunt, I don't think one person who doesn't normally utilize warnings saying that warnings are clearly useless is a good measuring stick for the potential success/failure of a warnings policy.

Also:

It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

I think a big part of the current problem is that people expect Vividcon to be all things to all people, which no con or community could possibly be.

I disagree with the generalizations you're making here. Requesting a change in policy so that basic accommodations are made for people with triggers is not trying to force Vividcon "to be all things for all people" - and various suggestions have been made that would enable people who wanted warnings to be able to access them, and people who didn't want them to be able to ignore them. I doubt you're doing it deliberately, but in this post you're setting up a false dichotomy that then justifies not warning for anything. I think it's particularly harmful considering that a warnings system hasn't even been tried yet.

[melina]

Thanks for doing this. It's an extremely valuable addition to the conversation.

[mresundance]

"Almost Cut My Hair" is not showing, but thanks for the additions! This is a decent list and gives people a good idea how to go about writing some warnings. Though, I would also add that until a more uniform system is in place, warnings will be frightfully subjective and therefore, probably limited. Ie, we will be mucking up for awhile. But I think it's better to try and fail and then try again and hopefully fail better than to sit around and do nothing.

[saraht]

It is okay to have spaces that privilege risk-taking over risk-prevention, so long as everyone involved is aware that's the case.

I agree. The nature of some activities/spaces means they will not be suitable for everyone; that doesn't make them inherently suspect. I think there are a *lot* of accommodations that can be made without changing the distinctive nature of VVC. I think there are some that cannot.

[autumnus]

okay I am not a vidder so please realize this is a very outsider point of view.

However the issue you are pointing out (miswarned videos) looks a bit like vidders not necessarily knowing what to look out for or the criterion on where for example when it is strong enough to warn.

I think some warning is better then none as long as audience is also aware that the warnings might not be all inclusive until we figure out a more foolproof way to do this. To make it better what about a guideline about warning that shows common trigger examples: maybe vid parts that show both milder and more extreme forms of it to give vidders visual examples to rely on. Would it be realistic to build such a resource? Would it help?

What about even a list of common things to warn and lookout for. Just master list of warnings (not necessarily inclusive but a guideline). This would help vidders who decided to warn to not to accidentally skip over something they might have forgotten or not aware of.

Just my two cents (and I apologize if these resources already exist or the reason why this cannot happen has been explained elsewhere).

Thank you for bringing this up.